Black Bird
by Breaeden Swordwind
Summary: The group goes to meet Crosell but things take a strange turn. Altered Retelling of the main story with possible Alnel MUCh later on. R&R anon reviews accepted
1. Self Same Slaughter

Alright this is an OC fic and it might eventually become a Alnel fic as well but I'm not certain about that. Flames are accepted by the way along with anon reviews because I know you all hate OC fics. Anyway R&R.

This will be something abit different from normal alnel's in that there will be no love. no compassion. This is my interpretations of things with the addition of a character, who hopefully not piss off too many people. Feel free to flame me just don't be silent.

Also, I'd like to say that this fic will only be update every other week or so in increments ranging from 2000-4000 words. This is only a sub fic for me and will be taking a back seat to Of Brother and Angels. Sorry but then its not that good so it doesn't really matter.

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**Prologue**

**Self-Same Slaughter**

The wind was sweet against his skin. Sickeningly sweet. A sweet ecstasy that would threaten to ruin his bad mood, but this was no usual depression. He sighed as his black-white hair was plastered against his face and the two braids that he had been trying to grow for sometime swung in the wind. They were still only half way down his back but would get longer unless he had anything to say about it. His left arm swayed dead in the wind and the claws of his new gauntlet scratched at his long loose pants. He didn't notice, he was running the events of the previous week through his head for the thousandth time. He could still feel the burning, the dragon fire lapping over his arm killing nerves, melting flesh, and turning bone to ash. They had managed to save most of the hand and some of the fingers but he would never be able to move the hand for the rest of his life. He would not have a useless hand though and at his request they had created a metal claw that went over his arm and with a twist of his torso and swing of his shoulder he could still launch a deadly attack with the hand.

That didn't matter though. All that mattered was that his father was dead. He had been reduced to a mass of bubbling skin and twitching ligaments before Albel's eyes. The once proud and strong knight known as Glou Nox. The man who had led the Dragon Brigade of Airyglyph had sacrificed himself in order to save his son, a son who was unworthy of life. The dragons had shown no mercy on the man who stood between them and their target, they would have a soul as forfeit and got one they did.

Not only had Albel taken the grave emotional injury of being directly responsible for the death of his father but his father in sacrificing himself for him had dealt a wound to Albel's precious hubris. Not only had Albel been too weak to succeed in his Ascension Ceremony but he had failed so spectacularly that someone had to protect him from the repercussions of his failure. Albel hated being protected, only the weak needed to be protected and he wasn't weak…or was he? He couldn't dodge the truth; he was indeed weak. He deserved to die and death is what he would get. He had found his way through the woods to a cliff near the border with Aquios that he and his older brother had often played near in the times of their youth. He would cast himself down about the ground below and fall to his death. Then would all be right with the world.

He gave no thought to those he was leaving behind. They would just have to deal with his lose. He doubted they would care much. Kasch could handle everything else; he would pass the Ascension of the Flame Ceremony he was being rushed into. Albel's brother had long been slotted to take over the Black Brigade while Albel would take over the Dragon Brigade, but with Albel's failure Kasch was being prepared for the position of Dragon Brigade Captain.

Albel leaned into the wind and it gave way beneath him. He could feel himself fall for but a moment when he jerked to a stop. He could see the rolling plains beneath him. They were a verdant tinge of green that just spoke of life and he could see small groups of people crossing them in peace. There was a border village not to far away and pillars of smoke rose from the chimneys and drifted away on the tranquil wind. Albel was hanging above all this neither standing on something nor falling. His left arm felt like it was being tugged out of its socket and looking up he noticed the dilemma that was preventing his free fall. Some how his claw had stabbed into the cliff face and was holding him up. He began pulling on it but it seemed firmly stuck and it did not want him to fall. What was odd was that the claw would find its way into a crevice and become so securely fastened into place and prevent his death. It was as though his father was protecting him from beyond the grave. But that thought was just silly. Albel didn't believe in spirits. It was just a freak coincidence.

Albel kept pulling on his imbedded claw for sometime and began screaming in frustration as it stubbornly refused to give. Drawn by his screams and yells a red head poked out from above the cliff. It was a red headed girl and judging from the strange (and very thin) clothing and the strange tattoos on her body she was an Aquarian. Oh well, at least if he didn't fall to his death than she would kill him. What he heard next made his heart sink. The girl spoke to him with concern obvious in her voice, "Are you alright? Here take my hand and I'll pull you up". She extended a thin arm towards him.

"Leave me alone and let me die! The only reason I'm still alive is this damned claw got stuck. You don't want to save me, anyway, I'm from Airyglyph. You should hate me!" Albel shouted viciously at her. _Go away! Damn it! I don't want to return in shame again! Did the bastard who saved me have to be an Aquarian wench! Doesn't she know that the weak don't deserve life? But then that is why those from Aquios are so fragile. They do not do what is necessary to expel there pathetic maggots. Ha! Neither does Airyglyph if it gave me any mercy._

"No! I can't do that to someone. If it was me down there I would expect you to do the same for me." The Aquarian girl said back and reached down from the brink and grabbed.

"But I wouldn't! I'd let you die! Let go, maggot, let go!" he smacked at her wrists with his free hand as she pulled him onto solid ground. He could feel the ground beneath him and scrambled away a few strides before he collapsed. He was on his hand and knees his breathing, for some reason, felt labored as he punched the ground that mocked him with it solidness. He stood erect and turned on the girl, "I HATE YOU" Albel shouted, "I was supposed to be dead. But no you had to be a damned hero!" He began to advance on her, his claw swaying menacingly. She sidestepped and backed up so as to avoid going over the edge of the crag.

"I saved your life you should be thankful! What could possibly be so wrong that killing yourself is the only solution?" the girl spat back at him. She stopped retreating and stood facing him. She was skinny and half a head shorter then himself but the way she acted she tried to make it seem like she was looming over him. Pathetic.

Albel let mocking laughter, escape his lips and turned his back to her. "You have dealt a grievous and unforgivable wound to my pride today by saving my life. For this insult I will one day kill you and all your people, pathetic fool. I leave you with my undying hatred wench." He began to walk away into the woods that crept up to the cliff.

"I'm to be punished for being a good citizen. Do you not know justice you…" her voice faded into a distant buzz as he moved away from her. He hadn't been joking, he would rededicate himself to his sword, he would find that annoying slip of girl, and he would kill her in a most violent fashion. He had a reason to live. He would redeem himself by killing every weakling in the world and turning the world into a place where only the strong survived. And he would start by killing those, like the girl he had just met, who gave mercy to the weak. He knew that since he was among the weak he would have to kill himself once he was done, he didn't feel to bad about that. At least his death would not be in vain.

He caught sight of someone out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head he saw leaning against the tree a boy with bone white hair. Slung over his shoulders were a large two-handed sword and another weapon. Kasch, for that was his name, was famous for using the normally two handed Black Brigade sword in one hand but it was he ability with the other weapon for which he had gained the most renown. His white hair was scraggly and untamed. He wore no armor and his clothes covered almost every inch of his skin, from the gloves on his hands to the boots on his feet. The only part of skin that could be seen was his face and it was covered completely with scars. Kasch had possessed those scars all over his body since he had been found in the mountains after a meteorite impact. Kasch was technically the older of the two Nox brothers (by adoption, as Glou had taken over the fatherhood of the boy when the king had been deciding what to do with the strange lad) but he looked the same age as Albel and had always looked that age as the passing of years did not seem to affect Kasch in the same way it did others.

"Kasch, what are you doing here?" Albel said, not trying to hide the blade of hostility in his voice. There was little love between the two brothers and normally they avoided each other whenever possible.

"Just making sure you didn't kill yourself but, luckily you can't even kill yourself right." Said the Kasch with his usual arrogant humility.

Albel brushed him off. He was not in the mood to put up with Kasch's passive aggressive attitude and did the simplest tactic to get Kasch to go away, give him an order. "Go away Kasch."

"I am less then human I cannot refuse your request." The boy bowed and ran into the distance. Albel was always curious as to what made Kasch less then human in his mind but in all honesty he didn't really care. All he knew was that it meant that Kasch would do whatever he was told.


	2. The Rescue

**Chapter 1**

**The Rescue**

That meeting, like all others before it, had been an exercise in tedium, Albel thought with a sighed as he stalked up the halls of Airyglyph castle. As normal Woltar and Vox had verbally kicked each other's shins but had made no useful progress towards deciding what to do with the prisoners. The two old men spent so much of their time trying to lessen each other in the eyes of the king that they never actually accomplished everything. Was it any surprise that the king would turn to Albel when he want something done with efficacy. However, in this case the king could not turn to Albel to force some words out of the prisoners because he had to make it seem like he played favorites to his Uncle Vox so that his family would keep its power behind the throne. Albel hated politics. They only allowed the weak to gain power and the strong to be subjugated. It showed in the fact that he, the pathetic Albel Nox was in a position of great power.

To be more then honest he hated being captain. Responsibility was not a concept that he backed. If his subordinates couldn't make decisions for themselves then why should they be allowed to live? He was tired of constantly cleaning up the messes of the weak. He had continued living so that he could create a world where only the strong survived not coddle some maggots every time they made a mess in their pants! He was a sell out to this stupid system of protecting the weak.

He walked out onto the ramparts of the castle. At least a battle was coming, that would lessen the number of heads he would have to worry about in the Black Brigade. But he was forced to sign a letter to the family of the dead soldier so that they could live under the illusion that he gave a damn about their sons or husbands or fathers. Seemed only fitting that the fools leave him more work before they went.

Looking out over the city proper of Airyglyph, Albel could see the large scar the supposed "new Aquarian weapon" had rent through the town during its collision. At first they had thought it just a "normal" meteorite. You couldn't exactly call meteorites a normal occurrence but they happened once every few years. However, once the object at the center had reveled itself it became obvious this was more the a meteorite. The fact that people came out of it only further proved that.

The last meteorite that had come down in Airyglyph had also led to the discovery of a person but it was in a different fashion. It had collided in the towards the peak of Mount Dunkelheit in the Traum range. Albel's father had been part of a party that had investigated the crash area. Sometimes meteorites were made of iron and other metals that could be useful in the making of weapons and armor and his father had been necessary to fight back the monsters that lived in the area. All they had found in the center of the crater was a boy curled up in a ball. He was completely naked, covered only by scars that were everywhere on his body. It was later determined that the boy had been a run away Aquarian that had been wandering the area and had been drown to the sound of the collision and had collapsed of exposure in the crater that still radiated heat from the impact. That was mostly supposition though. The boy didn't talk about his past and claimed not to remember anything. The way they had been able to tell he was Aquarian was that he had runes etched into his chest and back.

Glou had tried to make the case the boy was not Aquarian because, he had said, the runs had been branded into his flesh and then etched using a knife. A tattooing process using ink applied Aquarian runes. This was much less painful, though still agonizing. Glou would have known, he functioned as a representative to Aquaria during times of peace and had actually received a rune as a sign of good will.

Glou had adopted the boy. The boy had adopted two weapons. It was several months before the taciturn boy gave them a name, until then he had sarcastically said he was unworthy of being name. His called himself Kasch.

Growing up with that boy as an older brother was obnoxious. He always pretended to be weak but was secretly the most arrogant bastard ever to have been born. The exact opposite of Albel himself. Kasch was the better of the two at fighting but only because he was older. Kasch even gave Albel a few snippets of genuine praise. Albel could count the number of times he had complemented anyone else without needing a hand. Kasch never complemented anybody.

After the…incident. Kasch had gone alone to Crosell's area in the Urssa Lava cave as part of his Ascension of the Flame ceremony. But he had never returned. A party had entered to look for him but they returned empty handed. They only found the Marquis sleeping calmly in his cave with a pile of ashes in from of him.

It was at this moment that a wagon burst forth from the city hurtling across the snow that lay across the snowy ground. The driver must have been either incredibly reckless or incredibly late in order to be moving at that speed across the slippery ice and cliff edges that even at slow speeds claimed their share of wagon teams. It was when pursuit was launched by mounted guards, that Albel began to get a bad feeling about what might be happening.

A messenger ran up to Albel on the rampart. He saluted Albel and bowed. _Oh boy, bad news, _the messengers always bowed when it was bad news, they felt they needed to suck up a little more in order to stay in their captain's good graces. It was well know that Vox and Albel both had a tendency to take out their annoyance on anything within arms reach. "Sir, the prisoners have escaped with the help of an Aquarian spy. They are currently escaping across the mountains toward Kirlsa. The king wants you to lead the pursuit."

Albel grunted in affirmation that he heard the messenger then shooed him with a wave of his living hand. _Never send a maggot to do a man's work.

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Nel guided the two engineers through the aqueducts of the castle. They had managed to get past the inquisitor and his two henchmen easily enough but had been forced along a more dangerous route then she would have liked. The larger of the two, Cliff he called himself, seemed capable enough but she wasn't completely certain about the younger, the one with the obvious brains and manners of the two. _Hmmph… "hot chick" indeed! _

The aqueducts of Airyglyph were almost completely frozen as they always were, even in a little in summer. The clear ice reflected the light through their prisms in way that made the entire place seem to glow, under different circumstances she would have stayed a while to admire the view. Such now was not such a time and she was constantly pressing her two companions to move faster.

The monsters had been little trouble but she didn't want to count them out. To be frank she had been surprised by how little they had actually encountered, and suspicious as to why all those had been dead. The first had been the corpse of a small crablike beast with a thin exoskeleton that had been stabbed through by a large curved blade. She didn't trust what ever was killing these things to be on a strict regimen of only killing monsters.

Though what ever had killed the monster hadn't done it for food. None of the bodies had pieces missing or bite marks. Even the monsters that had body parts that were sellable were completely untouched. Consumption wasn't the reason for the slaughter. Nel hadn't informed the two engineers of the majority of the corpses she had seen out of the corner of her eye, half hidden by ice crystals that they had been dragged behind.

They were nearing the end of the aqueducts when they saw their first living monster. It was a large crab that was like the previous women only many times larger. It lurched to its feet and the ground shook slightly underneath its girth. It brandished its claws menacingly, huge cleavers which were easily capable of slicing through a horse. It had more of a discernable head then the more typical species of crabs and its mouth snapped forward hungrily. It didn't seem he was admitting travels.

"Let me handle this, ma'am" someone next to Nel said with a forced humility that she knew was not within the realm of either engineer's emotions. She and the two engineers leaped and all in midair twisted to face the stranger standing next to them.

A thick black cloak, with a hood that hid his face completely, covered him. He was leaning gingerly against a large scythe and was in his entirety black, like one imagined old Grim to be. What came from the cloak was covered in dark blue cloth, even his hands were gloved. No inch of skin was exposed. The only way that Nel could even tell that the stranger was male was from his voice, which was menacingly masculine.

The scythe was black as well and had a viciously barbed and curved blade. Nel could tell from the shape and size of it that it was what had made the puncture marks in the monster corpses she had found.

The monster had grown tired of waiting for them to came and began to shuffle towards them. Nel, and the engineers backed up but the blue and black reaper continued to lean against his scythe lackadaisically. The beast brought up its claw to smash the man but he suddenly rolled to the side. The falling claw impacted the ground and nothing more. The man, _wait his voice sounded young…maybe an adolescent, _brought his scythe up and into the underbelly of the beast. The barbs of his scythe did their work, tearing at the flesh and nerves of the beast and causing it the most enrapturing agony. The blade, also, sliced through several vital organs causing to bleed extensively and collapse. Death was not long in following.

The boy, yes, judging from his height and voice, she was fairly confident the person was an adolescent boy, twirled this scythe above his head then whip it in front of him to clean of the blood and slipped it over his back. He then walked out of the aqueducts and left them alone. Nel dashed after him and Cliff and Fayt followed. But they weren't nearly as fast and fell a ways behind. She exited the aqueducts through a short cave and came out at the top of a path the followed the cliff down to the city. Dashing down it she caught up near the base of the ramp and stepped in front of him, bringing a dagger up threateningly. "Who are you? Why did you help us?"

The boy turned his head away so that she couldn't get a look at his face even had there been enough light inside that cowl to see more than the vaguest outline of his face. "In your tongue, my name is Black Bird. I am one who wishes the war to continue and thus, for now, my goals coincide with yours."

The engineers were only just now arriving at the opening to the cave and still had to travel the way down the slippery ramp. They had slowed after seeing that Nel had not started fighting with the stranger, and took their time traversing the slippery path, with feet less sure then Nel's own. Nel still had questioned and not want the engineers to hear, still had a little bit of time before they came within ear shot. "Why do you want the war to continue? And how will helping us make it go on?"

He glanced back at the engineers, also seeming not to want them to overhear, "I want to the war to continue because battle is the only thing in life that I enjoy. If Aquaria doesn't receive the help of these engineers they will loose Arias in a months time and then it will be mere days before they capture the economic center of Peterny and after that Aquaria is defeated in all but name. With these engineers you will be able to complete your Thunder Arrows or whatever you call them. That will give you the fighting chance you need and allow the war to continue for a few more precious years."

"How do you know about-!"

"I just do!" he cut her off, "now be quiet". Just as he said this Cliff and Fayt arrived and asked whom the stranger was. Nel introduced him as Black Bird, which she said was a code name since he was an Aquarian spy that had been working behind Glyphian lines. She knew she couldn't trust him but she had a plan. She would use him up until they got to Arias, then she could use the Aquarian forces there to capture him and prevent him from working against them. If she let him go now he could become a danger.

After, they had been introduced, she led the group to the wagon outside of Airyglyph, which they would take to Arias if all went well.

As they were walking out of the city, Black Bird looked up to the ramparts of Airyglyph castle and seeing someone he recognized let a malevolent smile dance across his hidden lips.

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Not much to say about this one. The really good stuff is still in the future. The early parts of the game I'm just going to skip through, stopping at places that are different or where I feel I need to capture the thoughts of one of the characters involved. 


	3. Mind Games

Well, sorry for the delay but hers the next chapter. Half of me hates this chapter, the rest of me hates it like the plague. And yes I know the last paragraph is confusing as hell and should technically be several paragraphs but I like the confusing, gibbering effect it creates as is.

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**Chapter 2**

**By Breaeden Swordwind**

The snow whispered over the Traum Mountains caressing the jagged rocks the scratched the wind and rolling down into the empty valleys. A large wasp was moving through the snow and in pursuit of rat that was scrambling away from the insect. Suddenly, another wasp cut of the rat's retreat and as they closed in on the creature and repeatedly stung it is terrified gibbering entered into the snow-drenched wind.

The wind carried the snow along the rolling cliffs and embankments and cuts and around and around in a small whirlwind that hung over the heads of four travelers that were becoming more and more bogged down in the pilling snow. A blonde simian was leading the group, using his massive strength to push through the waist high snow. He was followed by a ocean-haired boy who was as skinny as the blonde was muscular and so took to using the blonde as a plow. To the two men's right was a cloaked boy who cleaved his own solitary path through the snow. He had not the bulk and raw muscle of the other man and by now he was exhausted but he had said several times that he would not follow them. When he did he tagged on a sarcastic, "Your Lordships".

Nel was following the pathway of the two engineers and was pulling up the rear so that she could watch the others incase the scytheman tried to kill anyone or the others tried to bolt. She had tried using the pathway cleared by the shadow but he had yelled at her that he did not clear a path so people could become weak behind him. She had wanted to follow him because she considered him to be the greatest…liability to the group.

She hadn't argued though because she didn't have the energy to fight with him, she had enough on her mind as things stood. The wagon they were supposed to take all the way to Kirlsa had been attacked and had been left to fend for themselves while Tyneave and Farleen drew away the pursuit. She hoped that the two women were all right but as things stood she had problems to go round getting these three men to Kirlsa. It seemed one problem was there solely to take her attention away from another problem which was there to take her attention away from another and…

She sighed and a thin trail of mist wound up from scarf only to be captured in the white streaked wind. Carried away in to the setting sun.

They would need to set camp and she said so to the men who all stopped except for Black Bird who kept pushing through the snow. "Where are you going?" shouted Nel, she had grown quite used to being the one to give orders in a field situation and did not take kindly to her responsibilities being ignored.

"Where are we going to stop, ma'am?" the shade said twisting his words into a river of raw loathing as he continued pushing through the ever-growing whiteness. "I'll tell you where, I know of a cave in the direction if your lordships would care to follow me."

Cliff and Fayt began to follow the boy and just like that Black Bird had become the leader of this pathetic journey. And Nel just stood their seething and to her chagrin was forced to follow Black Bird towards this cave of his. He was a graver threat then she had imagined and was beginning to regret letting him come along.

He followed the twin paths through the snow and went along Black Birds for no other reason then to spite the bastard. She began to loathe him when she realized how petty she was becoming. The war-loving bastard had managed to get inside her head and she didn't like it one bit.

When she found the cave it was a large hole bored into the cliff face and it led to an even larger chamber. The chamber was dome shaped it had wood stacked to one side and a hole in the room, which she assumed, led to the surface eventually. She could make that assumption because in addition to the wood other supplies were also laid out on the side of the cave and it gave the cavern the appearance of a station that Glyphian troops would use while they were on patrols. She wondered how Black Bird would come to know of this. In addition, she had been wondering how he came to know of the thunder arrow. As far as she was concerned the boy knew far to much and when they arrived at Arias his capture would take top priority.

It was little time before a fire was started and as soon as it had begun a coversation came up between Nel and the two Greetonites, Greetonites she was becoming more and more sure were not from Greeton. It was a general conversation about the states of things in and between Aquaria and Airyglyph, nothing of any great interest to anyone. It was of particular lack of interest, apparently, to Black Bird who said nothing the entire time. When food was distributed, he at but it was with speed and silence. Nel ate with slow refinement but with purpose, she spoke not a word for she had grown used to having to be ready to move at a moments notice and knew she could not waste precious eating time on idle conversation. Still when she had finished she rejoined the conversation with the engineers.

Cliff was a bit shady and appeared to have a few things in his that seemed suspicious but he did not bring these forward. He seemed nice enough though constant making some wisecrack, though the wisdom involved in them was debatably, and though he had a rash boyish streak, he was for the most part compent.

The other, with his strange blue hair, seemed guilty and dishonest about something. It wasn't in anything he said _literally_ but the way he spoke and his awkward speech gave the impression that something was eating at the back of his conscience but Nel could not figure out what this might be. Otherwise he was kind and empathetic, all and all he was much more tolerable then his obnoxious companion. The boy was green though, and didn't look like he had seen much combat before like Cliff did. When they had been traveling through the snow and had been attack by the various beast that made their homes in the snow-swept highlands, the boy had always shown a hesitation before engaging. Well, it would have been more noticeable if Black Bird didn't kill the wasps before anyone, but herself, could react to the new presence.

Black Bird, however, was more revealing in his disloyalty. He flat out said he had no loyalty towards them and that he was working for his own goals. Goals that Nel did not trust. He was suspiciously silent at all times, never offering anything about himself or even bothering to become involved with the others. This bothered her because a Glyphian spy would try and endear himself or at least talk enough to allay suspicion but Black Bird just kept up a stone wall of silence. And his omniscience was frightening. She would not sleep until he was, she didn't trust him to be alone with their sleeping bodies.

The cold night weaved its shadowy tendrils across the sky and devoured the last remains of the day and everyone was bedding down for the night. Cliff and Fayt took the part of the cave far from the entrance and slept near each to other facing Nel. They obviously didn't quite trust her. Nel claimed the area near the entrance so she could monitor the others and prevent their escape. She faced the center of the cave, though not because she would be looking at Cliff and Fayt. Black bird remained sitting near the center of the cave look at the ebony embers that glowed placidly at the edges and occasionally kicked up a small flame. Just barely enough to see.

Fayt and Cliff went to sleep quickly but Nel stayed awake, lying on her side faking sleep, and watched Black Bird who was still awake. He was staring into the glowing embers, which his drearily making her eye lids heavy as she struggled to stay awake. Finally, she gave in to fatigue and was letting a familiar memory of regret play in the back of her mind, when Black bird poke. He voice was cutting and it tore into her a ripped the fatigue from her body as fear set in, "Part of you wishes you had killed him, right?" he turned his cloaked head to her and she stared at him. "That you had let die the man who would become the bane of Aquaria, the Scourge of Seven, and The Wicked One. But the rest of you can't bring up the antipathy to hate someone so pathetic and deserving of pity. How can you hate someone who hates themselves? How can you despises a man who spends his nights cuddling up with mewling weakness while and fritters his days away in empty strength and bears only the burden of frailty and past shames like a millstone that he carries to a place he doesn't want to go? Have even the demons of hell so little pity? No, no demon of hell could be so pitiless. It would take the corporations and federations of man with their desensitizing and nerve-killing pacts of conscience to create a creature of contempt so great as to be call man and be without the thought of mercy. That is you. You beat yourself up for being weak, for that is what you are, and not killing the one who now harms your faceless conglomerate of man's hopes and dreams. So what will you do when you meet him again O' maggot of the north's bounty? Will you grant him mercy and give him life or grant him mercy and give him death? Will you side with your baser instincts and save him or side with you baser instincts and kill? Will it be for you or for others? For love or for hate?" The cloaked boy moved from were he was sitting to near her, talking as he shuffled along letting the scraping sound of gravel hone is already pointed words. She was bleeding profusely, though her skin was unmarred. She was terrified in ways she had never been before and could not even muster the courage to quail in fear or wet herself in horror. A stray ray of light briefly illuminated a single eye within his hood. It was predominately blue except for lapping tongues of orange the sprang from the pupils like towers of fire from the pyre. The eye was almost crazed, filled with the desperation, like the animal that sees the trapping being sprung and frantically wills itself out of the trap's reach before the twin steel jaws of the contraption close around its leg. The eye disappeared and the boy began to whisper hoarse and mocking, barely containing his budding joy as she swirled in a nimbus of the netherworld's own gripping fear. " Will you find solace or only an empty act of defiance? Will become everything you hate in the process of killing that which you hate or become that which you pity or your granting of mercy? Will you find strength in the cesspool of weakness or merely sink into it siren sludge? Will you define the world by knowing yourself or by knowing the object of your scorn, your love, and your pity?" He began talking slowly letting each word slowly scrape through her, "Who are you? For you are not Nel Zelpher of the Crimson Blades, the people's and the queen's errand girl! Or maybe that is who you want to be? You wish to be Nel Zelpher? To be worthy of that servile name? If you do then you already are." He began to walk away, back to the embers which were now hissing piles of darkness but suddenly turned to look at her, "Goodnight, ma'am" He drawled in his mocking humility. Nel never went to sleep that night and neither did Black Bird who stared into the fire as if he had slept for hours already. How could Nel sleep, when she was half numb?

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Also, as always review or I shall shake my finger ruefully at you 


	4. Preaching of the Stones

I'm actually quite proud of this chapter. First, time I've been proud of something I wrote for at least a month. Anyway, this story is becoming more and more Psychological Horror, e.g. the central Nel soliloquy. Next chapter will have the return of Albel after a two chapter hiatus. Anyway please review or something might go down at sometime in someplace some how.

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**Chapter 3**

**The Preaching of the Stones**

**By Breaeden Swordwind**

They had passed through the Kirlsa caverns easily enough. Admittedly she had been somewhat stressed keeping Fayt and Cliff from getting themselves killed but Black Bird had bailed everyone out more then once. He moved his scythe huge graceful sweeps, occasionally wielding the massive weapon in a single hand. Passively, almost without any seeming intent to do so, he would protect the engineers from monsters. He had said that it was his goal to see them safely to Aquaria. So Nel supposed she should not be surprised. Even if she still didn't trust his reasons.

She had taken it upon herself to make sure any wounds taken by Fayt, Cliff, or Black Bird were removed quickly. With Fayt and Cliff it was easy enough, they readily submitted to the healing process but Black Bird fought her every step saying he didn't need it. He wouldn't explain, dodging the point constantly. Finally, when his back was turned she cast a heal symbol on him. It just slipped right off. No effect. Nothing.

Black Bird didn't seem to notice and later when he brushed some blood from slight cut on his arm the blood revealled closed skin underneath. Her spell had not affected him so it could not have been her. Could he cast magic? That might explain why he said he didn't need help but why did her heal spell just skim off? It wasn't like normal magic shield that would either have reflected the effect back at her or merely dulled its effects. Whatever it was just caused the spell to go right through him like so many arrows through air.

The other two had been less of a bother. Fayt was getting better at fighting but, at times, he was still a liability. Fortunately, Cliff seemed to be watching out for him well enough and it wasn't to much of problem. Astonishingly, Fayt was rapidly picking up Runlogy, using the more basic attack spells. His blade was becoming a force to be reckoned with, though he often sank to high-risk showboating moves with little effective use that seemed to stem from training without an opponent. He claimed he was not used to fighting with something to loose and Nel took his excuse at face value.

Nel had not liked the ride on the hauler one bit. It wasn't scary or anything like that but it was…unnerving. Especially when they were taking jumps at high speed. She didn't let it show through, as the others seemed to be taking it better. Cliff was positively enjoying himself and Fayt seemed to like the thrill of busting through a wooden path block or narrowly avoiding the falling boulders that came from above. Black Bird leaned against the side of the cart and seemed indifferent to the whole annoying affair.

But finally the ride had come to a stop and Nel was once more on solid ground and making her way from the tunnels stagnant air into the light of day. Honestly, the conditions in those caverns could not be good for the humors. Going from the barely lit darkness of the cave to the blazing sun overhead required her eyes to adjust and the pain of it slowed her temporarily.

They proceeded through the rocky mountain without any noteworthy difficulty. The monsters that dwelled her were easy enough to handle, although they had made mining here difficult as could be seen from the rusting pieces of mining equipment that had been left to rot by fleeing miners. Nel would have liked to have been able to better secure the region and allow the Aquarian mining teams to return to work but as things stood it served as a buffer, absorbing some of the force from Glyphian raids. The monsters had developed a taste for southern blood just as much as their traditional taste for northern flesh.

Eventually, they came within sight of Arias. The stone walls had never seemed so soft, like the waiting pillows on a made bed after a day of backbreaking work. She was physically and mentally exhausted. Black Bird caused both; his words had kept her from getting proper sleep for the past few days. She would toss at night replaying both the incident at the cliff along to the tune of Black Bird's half-crazed words. Pulling the unwilling from beyond the brink of death back into the world of the living only to have the reanimated corpse kill her people with demonic ruthlessness.

Why did that claw beast desire the death so badly? Both his own and those of practically every other living creature. She had heard the stories. Who in the lands of Aquaria hadn't? Tales of blades and talons that rend flesh while screaming, "Come and kill me! Come and prove that you are worthy of life!" Whispers of the cruelty exhibited to even his own men when he detect the tremors of weakness with the word, "Do you want to be like me, maggot?"

Most people who had heard the latter rumor believed it was a sign of some great arrogance and for the most part she agreed but in the back of her mind she didn't. Her conscience still saw that pathetic creature that had walked into darkness of death for fear of the light. She knew that the phrase was a masked sign of self loathing. She fought with herself on whether what she did was right. As Black Bird had so disturbingly put it she was afraid she had done what was right and afraid that she had not.

What had happened in that black-and-white machinations life that had driven it to suicide? Was it simple human weakness, basic teenage angst grown fat, feeding like a leech upon an obviously disturbed consciousness? Was it a complicated series of events that had shatter a life and left the future seeming barren and lifeless, lonely and in want of another of human soul to give it the vague impression of vitality and potential? She had not studied philosophy much as her time had been diverted to more physical trainings, though she had never finished it. However, she had always been interested in psychology and the creature's psychosis was particularly fascinating, morbidly so. It was like watching ripe fields burn, or another human being pummeled into the ground by thieves. The mind screamed for action or retreat but the body was too fascinated by the spectacle. It tickled the perverted streak that dwell within all humans. A perverted streak that seemed to be all Black Bird was made of.

He had raped her, mentally speaking, and she felt a little less innocence. It was a laying bare of all the ideas that she had coyly flirted with. The tearing of her subconscious dilemma's into center stage where they could not help but reek. The almost gibbering way he had deliver took almost demonic pleasure in the twisting of her spirit around his little finger. An eternal fascinating like some good dissecting a tiny ant, smiling as he plucked out each organ and wound half-heartedly how it took part in the working of the creature as a whole.

Nel was sullied and dirty and full of doubt now. The human mind it seemed took easily too resting on institutions and she had not realized how much she leaned against the kingdom of Aquaria until now. She had always believed that she was supporting Aquaria but now it seemed that it was supporting her as well. Two columns that leaned against one another and kept each other erect. Now she realized she was leaning and had begun to pull back only relizing how much weight a single consciousness possessed. Aquaria had kept her aloft by keeping her from feeling a need to think, and now that she felt that need she didn't know what to make of it. Was it right to kill the sad suicidal beast? Was it ethical to kill something less then human like that? Could it not be made human? Was it so far gone, lost from the moment it had stepped off that cliff? Was it right to lean against a institution? Did that take away from her strength? What if a human leaned against nothing? What then? So many questions and the only thing that seemed confident in the answers would use them to drive her insane. Slowly, drive them into her like white-hot barbs.

She was afraid now. More then she had ever been. She was afraid of Aquaria. Afraid of herself. Afraid of her questions. What path would they take her down? Were they good questions? She was deathly terrified of Aquaria now and of Airyglyph and the soft, rocky, stone, pillow walls of Arias seemed to be seductive. She would continue with Aquaria, but she decided that she would use it less as a crutch and keep her mind more acute then it had been for years.

She began to walk down the path toward Arias, Fayt and Cliff followed. Black Bird stood and made no movement in the direction of the fort city. Nel looked back and yelled to him to get moving. She wanted this over with so that she could take a brief break and think things through some more. A lot was on her mind right now. Besides, she needed him inside Arias so that she and the rest of her forces could capture Black Bird and prevent future trouble.

Suddenly, Black Bird began to laugh. His laugh was course and grating, tearing and fiendish, deadly and mocking, arrogant and humble. "What do you think I am? Stupid? I would not enter Arias for all the battle in the universe. I will not let myself be captured, ma'am." His tone mocked her, "You and your beneficent kind will ambush me as soon as I'm through the gates."

He had her peg, Nel though with chagrin, she had only one choice, lie through her teeth. "We won't capture you and you will be well cared for under our custody."

Black Bird took a stone serious tone and spoke with mechanical precision, "I would not allow my freedom, my independence to come under threat." His right hand went to his head and held it as though he had a strong headache. "I do hope you are able to move these engineers through your own territory without getting them killed, my liege. I, however, have done all I need to."

"You'll only be capture by Airyglyph!" Nel shouted trying vainly to convince him to walk to his imprisonment.

"I doubt that. I have…a trump card for dealing with Airyglyph, connections, if you will. " He mused over his shoulder as he walked away his massive scythe leaning on his shoulder in his right hand.

Nel decided not to pursue him as it might lead to the death of her or the engineers. Though she did not like the idea of letting someone so dangerous run free. It was only half a personal vendetta.


	5. Fascinating Despair

A/N: Thanks to all my readers for the hits and my loyal reviewer for the reviews. I'd like to see some more reviews and I'm not afraid to bust out the rueful finger again stand menacingly. Anyway, keep reading start review and of course comments and (expecially) critisms are appreciated.**  
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**The Fascinating Despair**

**By Breaeden Swordwind**

Of course he knew someone was in there, he wasn't dumb. He could hear the sounds of battle, the screams of the dead and dying. It could only have been more beautiful if he was the one causing it. Alas, he was not and for now he had to content himself with imagining how it must look, some weak fool's blood splattering colors in seemingly random forms. For now he lost himself in the sounds of battle forget, for a moment, his pains and his coursing desire for revenge against the person who had stayed old Grim. He remember his own fights and how, during battles he felt were particularly easy, he would use the blood burst out of his victims chest after his first incision, let that blood fly through the air and land in ways that once the chaos had died would be akin to a painting. Once, for irony's sake, he had drawn a picture of a battle in the blood of those slain in war. It amused him.

He shook his head slightly, letting his stray thoughts fly off and smash themselves against the rocky ground. He had drifted for a moment and now the intruder appeared to be on the roof, at least that's what he supposed from the sounds of battle. He walked to where the Kirlsa Training Facility leaned supportively upon the adjacent cliffs. Leaping into the air he landed on top of a large nearby rock. He repeated this process up the boulder strewn cliff until he thought he had a good jump to the ledge of the facility. He was off, ever so slightly. He was not concerned, it would only require him grabbing the edge with his hand and he would be fine. It was when he realized instinct had made him reach with his left hand that he was concerned.

His left hand was dead. A memorial token of his ever-present weakness. It was covered up with a mantle of steel, arrogance but it was still there. It never got any stronger only more ignorable. At that haughty metal slammed against the edge but they did not grip the stone. There was no living muscle to dig the claws against the stone. He impacted against the wall and fell like a stone.

He managed to grab a hold of a ledge underneath an open window with his living hand. It had been a long time since he last remembered that he had been crippled. Normally, he could go about life and not really think about the fact that one of his hands was dead. Now, however, he could remember how rehabilitating the injury was. He could feel the advantages that everyone else had, the use of both arms, the world given him this disadvantage in order to keep him from completely dominate this pathetic world.

_No! _ _I received this arm because of my weakness, because of my failure. I'm the truest maggot and shouldn't even be alive but that I allowed someone of power to sacrifice his life for my pathetic one! _He hated himself, hated his claw, hated his weakness, but he would never, ever, admit it to anyone but the air and even then he did not trust the air to keep its mouth shut.

With his right hand he pulled himself up on to the narrow ledge. He leaned back and sidled close to the rock wall and jumped to a crag and restarted his ascent to the summit. He reached the top with enough time to watch Shelby get finished off by the maggots. Beneath him were two female prisoners that were chained against the wall. He quickly ascertained what had happened.

Apparently Shelby, the promotion seeking maggot that he was had captured these two fleeing Crimson Blades and had decided to use them as bait to capture a bigger fish. The fish had indeed bitten but it proved to have more strength then Shelby and his personal entourage, _no surprise there. _It made him forget somewhat his failures to be able to watch those of another, weaker fool.

But what fish had sunk Shelby's boat? If he remembered the descriptions correctly then the two male fools were those fools that had crashed the object into Airyglyph the object that was still lodged in the city wall. If he felt like it he could easily capture the two men and return them to Airyglyph's custody and even kill a few Crimson Blades while he was about it. If he felt like it.

He didn't though. He was weak and would only prove that more so by attacking the tired and the captured. It would be better to let them rest up, have their temporary victory over the pathetic Shelby and then when they were in prime condition they could try and prove that they were better then him, try and prove that they were not maggots like so many, many others.

It was then that he turned his attention to the red-headed scum. Her back was turned so he could not discern who it was but the hair trickled through the cracks in his mind and dripped annoyingly that was buried deep beneath boulders. He smirked arrogantly, and decided to get their attention, "How fitting, once a maggot himself now he's food for the maggots." They all looked up at him towering above them, his dead arm resting comfortably on the hilt of his sword.

He finally got a view of the once face and that suppressed memory burst from its prisons. It was that scum that had saved him from his deserved death! His entire body itched for her death. He trembled with the desire to kill. His hate for her had not abated since that day, no it had grown stronger, more acute. His lusted to take that first blood as his claw tore threw her chest a paint a picture on the ground, a thousand splatters that spoke not in shape but in emotion, in ferocity. His knuckles whitened as they gripped his sword, his battlelust lapped at him as it had never done before. No one had insulted him in quite the way she did, giving him mercy like he was her ally, she had basically said that he was no threat to her people, that she could save his life and it wouldn't make a difference. He had trained harder after that incident then he had ever done before, and once his time came he hew his way across the fields of battle, leaving behind only silent bodies and his own burning rage to prove to her that he was the stronger maggot. That her Aquarian scum nation was nothing compared to him. At nights he would beat the walls of his room and tear the curtains from the wall in rage, he couldn't resist it. He was too weak to make a difference based on willpower so he sacrificed what little determination and grit he had to his wrath so that it burned with him and made him stronger.

He almost considered tossing aside his previous resolution of not attacking until the enemy had rested. It was so tempting to just unleash his fury on that red-headed…maggot! To tear her flesh, to drink her blood, to to to _AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! _He could barely hold himself back. No, he wouldn't be as weak as her. She would attack from behind if she felt her foe was evil so he would not. Besides, there was not evil. There was only the weak and the strong. And he would prove that even if he was not among the strong he was not as weak as her.

He finally dragged himself out of his stupor when he heard his name mentioned, "That gauntlet…your Albel Nox." Thanks maggot, yes, he was. He had never been proud of it but yes he was indeed Albel "the Wicked" Nox. Actually, he was somewhat proud of his nickname, it showed that the maggots of the world feared him, at least securing him a place as the greatest of the failures. It meant that all his training, both mental, physical, and emotional, had paid off at least a little.

He let his arrogance talk with almost no import from his mind. He did that a lot. Not particularly caring what he said as long as it got the annoying people away so that he could focus on more important tasks at hand. There were millions of maggots in the world and they would burn away your time if you let them, however, a slight unsheathing of the sword, some fiddling with his claw, or a haughty word was normally enough to scare them away and leave him to his depression.

He tuned into the conversation briefly only to get an ear full from one of the male fools about how Shelby, as his subordinate, was his responsibility. What a load of crap that was, and he told to uppity idiot so. To think some failure thinks that just because Shelby works under me I should support him. If Shelby wants to take hostages and lure in some executioners to cut short his pathetic life that was Shelby's responsibility not his. Albel should actually thank the pathetic fools and the insufferable girl for getting rid of the obnoxious fool.

Finally, he had taken as much trash spewing as he could from these maggots and decided to leave. Breaking of the "conversation" without a second word he leapt of from the Training Facility. Landing on the ground he made his way back to Airyglyph. He grinned maniacally. So she was alive. And she was someone with marginal skill in battle. This might be more amusing then he had anticipated. If he was right in assuming that the girl was leader of the Crimson blades as she seemed to be, her name was Nel Zelpher.

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So that is what the creature Albel Nox had become. It had barely been human when she had saved his life, but then it was a sort of pathetic look. Now it was a monster, Hardly caring about the lives and deaths of others. She wondered what had happened to it to change it from the sniveling suicidal boy to clawed man-slaying monster. It made her wonder whether her actions had made it what it was. She thought it had been an outburst more of emotion then of thought when it had said "You have dealt a grievous and unforgivable wound to my pride today by saving my life. For this insult I will one day kill you and all your people, pathetic fool. I leave you with my undying hatred wench.".

Apparently, it had meant what it said and sacrificed the prospect of suicide in return for the prospect of killing her. So she had motivated him not to kill itself and in the process created a murderer. That was great for her conscience. It still seemed pathetic though. It may be acting tough and arrogant but underneath it had been twisted into something less then human. A mere shadow of a creature that survived off its desire for vengeance. Pathetic. Maybe, killing it would be erring on the side of justice.

She could not completely make herself believe that. What should be something simple, kill a suffering creature as an act of mercy, had become a complex concoction of symbolic actions, servility, and collateral damage and benefits. She hated Black Bird more then she had hated anyone in the world except for maybe Albel. Both made her second guess her actions. Before it had been do whatever it takes to help Aquaria, occasionally that might be complicate by delay repercussions and the like but it was far simpler then this. Now every action became something that might change who you are. If I help Aquaria I could become a slave to institution but I gain a sense of belong. By killing my foes I symbolically harden myself and thus become like Albel, completely detached from the lives of others, but if I don't then I am exposed to revenge. How Albel with his fascinating despair, an endless puzzle, and Black Bird, constantly picking at her despair, had made her life miserable. Their was to much thinking, she could not relax and let instinct take over. _The two of them must be brothers or something because they are way to annoying to be anything else.

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	6. Learning To See

A/N: The first chapter from Black Bird's point of view and a very plot heavy and disturbing one at that. But then I like to think they are all at least a little disturbing. If you think I don't know what I'm going to do with all these plot lead-ins your wrong. I have it all planned out. All please review, I truly appreciate it but I have only gotten reviews from three different people and two of those are anonymous so I can't respond to them (btw to those anonymous reviewers "thanks!"). Oh and in the story most of that is arrogance not necessarily truth.

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**Learning to See  
**

**By Breaeden Swordwind**

_Who am I? I'm certainly not Black Bird that is just another name that I give out when I need to keep my real identity a secret. I have never really said my real name because, simply enough, I don't know it. _The cloaked boy begins to crest another rise in the deserted mountain path. No one traveled here for there are too many monster. But monsters were the least of the boy's worries; there were thousands of things more painful then barbed teeth. Barbed memories or, more precisely, the lack there of, were also quite agonizing.

There was a large boulder that covered half of the rock path and the boy that some call Black Bird smiled at finally being returned to his other weapon. Passed the boulder and behind it was a massive black great sword, the type of weapon made famous by the Black Brigade of Airyglyph. It entered his hand easily enough and he twirled it innocently over his right hand. He spun his scythe off his back with his left hand. He used each weapon in a single hand, whatever monsters that were still in the area stepped away in fear. He was never able to use both weapons in public because had become quite famous for his use of the weapons under a different name. No one knew where he got the skill, he had simply walking in grabbed the two weapons and was skill with them. With any other weapon he was mediocre but with the scythe and the great sword he was almost untouchable. He wondered sometimes why he had such an attraction to the weapons, was it inborn or was it from before he lost his memory? He didn't know.

Sheathing the two weapons easily over his shoulder he continued walking up the path. Finally, he came to a plateau, a flat portion of the mountains were he could walk easily. In the approximate center of the mesa was a crater. This was the closest thing he had to a birthplace. He had woken up in the center of the crater with no memories and he hated that. He was later found wondering around the area and he looked the exact same as he did now, the same age, minus a few scars. Many people whispered behind his back that he was some kind of sorcerer who had made a potion that gave eternal youth. He almost wished he could tell them the truth but, alas, he did not know the truth.

High in the sky and he looked up at it and wondered who he really was again. He always came here when he had identity diffusion but it never really helped, all it did was bring up more questions. The boy was immensely frustrated. He was tired of all this. Tired of his ignorance. Tired of feeling so old. He knew he was old but not how he knew. Maybe it was the fact that he was ageless or maybe…

He ripped his sword of his shoulder and sliced his hand off at the wrist. Blood poured from the wound but he didn't care. He watched himself bleed. All the blood was red, bright red. He had killed and cut enough to know it wasn't a mortal wound unless you could see the dark lifeblood of the heart. The wound kept bleeding bright red blood. He looked at the ruby liqour hoping to see that violet liquid that would signify his impending death. No such luck.

Suddenly, streams of characters and numbers came from his hand. They were all part of a computer language which was base 123 unlike binary which was a meager base 2. It allowed the expression of inordinately complex ideas and terms. Every part of his hand was represented in the language. Down through the cell, through the mitochondria, through particle, past the atom, and into the quark. Every possible division of matter was dealt with and he could read it as the characters sped past. His ability to read the data was another thing he didn't know how he knew. Suddenly, the data solidified and there, good-as-new, was his hand, now with a large scar around the wrist.

The entire hand was covered in brown and pink scar tissue from countless other wounds, his entire body was.

He was so frustrated and angery. How come he couldn't die? What made all those other maggots so deserving of an eternal sleep? It wasn't fair. He had granted so many people the mercy of death. His scythe and sword had claimed so many lives, why did he not gain some small granule of mercy? He screamed and punched a nearby boulder full force with his clench fist. Every bone in his hand snapped only to twist and reform back into shape tougher then before. It was a sickening thing to watch. The skin bent and contorted as his shards of bone tried to realign themselves, sometimes they cut nerves and blood vessels but those only reformed as well.

It was disgusting. _He _was disgusting. _Oh well at least I'm better then all those pathetic mortals down there_, he thought letting his gaze fall on the undeserving masses below. _I could go down there and torch them all. Slaughter them. Murder them. But I would only be doing them a favor, it would be better to make them suffer. _The sun was beginning to set and the sky turned to a plumage of orange, red, and yellow. The colors of fire. Maybe one day he would get these mortals back by burning their atmosphere like gasoline fumes.

Replacing the sword to his back the boy known as Black Bird walked to the crater. He skittered half-way down one of the sides and moved a rock to reveal a small hole he had dug before the Airyglyph soldiers had found him. Within it was an idea he often looked at when he had no idea who was and though it never made the feelings any better it kept him from going out and killing those mortals with their death and their confidence in who they were. Sticking his hand down the hole he felt the cold touch of metal and withdrew it from the hole. It was piece of metal with the strangest blue hue and he believed it was connected to his birth or at least how he came to be here. Flipping it over in his head he read aloud the words blazoned on the other side, "Moonbase Experimental Shuttle 0000-0001 "Cilia".

He wished he knew what it meant. Was he "Cilia"? Or was the shuttle "Cilia"? Word association, one of the basest instincts of man, led him to the imagery of a shuttle as some sort of flying carriage.

Suddenly, an impulse hit him. He was the greatest being in existence and here he was denied the release of death and the knowledge of who he was. That could only mean one thing.

All existence was arrogantly laughing at him because he was somehow different. He was not a creature of this world or he would be able to die. Well, he would have his revenge on this world, oh yes, just when this world thinks it will find the embrace of nonexistence he would make sure it continued its painful purposelessness. He almost laughed but he took no pleasure in his to be done cruelty.

He only took pleasure at the actual tearing of people's hearts as he made them realize their own stupidity. When he tore away the subconscious veil they used to hide their eyes from the searing light. He knew he had seen the light so now he was blind…maybe that was why he had no memories. All that mattered was that he was blind and so all he had was the smell of fear as realization dawned, the taste of domination as he used their frail emotions as playthings, the feeling of water held in his fingers as they tried to slip free only to find his fingers airtight, the sound of their heart racing as the fought back but never getting the chance to voice their ripostes because he parried and returned them before they had even thought of them. He didn't know this for sure but he imagined it was better then sex.

Like that amusingly stupid red headed women whose name he had already forgotten. She had been his favorite type, close-minded, stubborn, holier-then-thou, and had a very black and white thought process. He loved burning their eyes with truth, the way she had been unable to breathe as he laid the world out in front of her. He wondered if it would be possible to kill someone by asphyxiation using on words and the victims mind. He would have to try for that next time.

She wasn't at all like Albel. She might have had similar experiences if his memory served but she was fundamentally different. Albel had opened his soul to his pained and was now blind, wise, and more then a little insane. She, however, had walled herself away using he sanity as some pathetic shield so she did not have to feel the cold pain of reality. Albel was no where near as amusing because he realized what the world was like and it was almost impossible to scorch the eyes of a blind man.

He looked back down at the shard. He sneered behind the cowl of his cloak, behind the white hair. Here he was telling the world of his might and intellect while, at the same time, he depended on some puny shard of metal memory to relieve his pain or at least make it more of a numbing pain. Now was not the time to rely on pathetic pieces of steel and he closed his eyes, ever so softly. When he opened them his normally black-brown eyes were like blue orbs of a midnight sky as tongues of flame leapt from the earth that was his pupil. What he saw changed as well, the world was nothing but streams of data, and everything was nothing but floating characters that he could read. He focused on the twisted steel in his hands and it broke up into individual character and entered his body. It became part of him.

He blinked his eyes and everything returned to normal save that in his hands was only hair. He felt isolated and alone, the world was collapsing in around him, struggling to bring him down. It was a nice feeling. It made him feel superior to know that all creation hated him so much. He was alone because if he had any help all existence would be on the run.

The sun was now completely consumed by Elicoor and the night sky was alive with the glow of stars. Walking up to the edge of the cliff he looked up the distant ground which was also alive with the glow of lights from the many farms and towns and cities. He looked back up to the sky and in the moment felt each tiny microcosm of light was like a sea of lights and combined was an ocean the rolled in lap within the confines the heavens had set for it. It was a star ocean he could drown himself in. Comfort tinged him and he thought for that brief moment, out there, among those stars, was a being that could kill him. Maybe. For some reason he could not choose whether he wanted that creature to kill him or whether he wanted to prove that he could conquer that creature. But then there was probably no creature that could kill him. Not even the Marquis could do that.

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A/N once more review. 


	7. Dry Canyons and Dry Blood

**Dry Canyon and Dry Blood**

**By Breaeden Swordwind **

Nel stepped calmly out of the mine and into the canyon's whose walls seemed to have tans and sunburns resulting from their extensive exposure to the harsh sun. They had managed to retrieve the necessary copper for the Thunder Arrow and now they would be ready for the Glyphian attack. As Fayt and Cliff fell in behind her, she started to make her way down the pass that the cart with Tynaeve and Farleen should have gone. Once, the copper arrived and the scientist had replaced the iron on the Thunder Arrow with copper it she would feel a whole lot better. Airyglyph would be forced to admit defeat after this battle and Black Bird's prophesy about a lengthened war would be proven wrong. Aquaria would be able to find peace, again. She would be able to use the tedium of peace as a way to determine what she needed and what she wanted out of her service to Aquaria. It was all very confusing.

"Hey what's the wagon still doing here?" Cliff said from over her shoulder. Nel looked up and noticed that the wagon was, indeed, sitting idly in the middle of the pass. She became worried and broke in to a run. When she rounded a bend in the path her worst fears were confirmed. The creature was waiting for her. It smiled from behind its black-and-white hair, mocking her. Farleen groaned at its feet in pain and callously it kicked her to shut her up. The creature known as Albel Nox.

It had two Black Brigade soldiers with it, though Nel knew that all that really mattered was that the sub-human was there. The two soldiers could be cows for how relevant they were to the situation at hand, mere training dummies to the beast's raging dragon. Nel yelled at it, "Albel, what are you doing her?"

It spoke easily, its voice turned the air into a sea of sarcasm "Oh, I'm sorry. You see I mistook your maggots here for being competent in a fight. It's really all a…misunderstanding."

"Get out of our way Nox!" Nel yelled back at it though not actually expecting it to move. It was more of a pointless demonstration of her own loathing for the creature.

It merely laughed, " Come now, fool, surely we can talk this out with a sword right through you?" Suddenly, it turned deadly serious. "I am not here to fool around, maggot. I am not here by any orders. I am here to kill you for your dishonoring me so many years ago and I will make sure that you blood is well used in watering this parched ground."

That was its reason for coming here? It traveled all this way, ambushed her subordinates, and killed probably hundreds of monsters, all for the chance to kill her as restitution for her saving its life from suicide? What manner of beast was this creature? Its cold dead hand rested on the hilt of its sword.

She had never really looked at that claw but right now it was strangely fascinating. It was made of hard, icy steel and it was at the same time both wickedly malevolent and unabashedly plain. Underneath the steel was a thick cloth that kept the eye from seeing any fleshy bit of the arm. She knew the stories, that Albel had most of its arm burned to the bone. She wondered if there was any flesh left hidden beneath the cloth and steel. She wondered that only thing beneath the surface was the lifeless bone, the shadow of the power and vitality that had once existed there. If there was tissue left it could obviously not be regrown to its former extent, but could it be cleaned and be made softer and less course. It was dubious though, behind the all the steel, behind the cloths, behind the wicked exterior, and behind the claw was nothing but a burn out corpse. A piece of flesh that had been burnt into some detestable mockery of the human form. That claw was so morbidly enthralling, almost akin to the childish fascination with poking dead bodies with sticks.

Nel, along with Fayt and Cliff, readied herself to receive the monster's charge. Albel unsheathed its sword into its right hand and let its claw arm dangle in front of it. Suddenly it zigzagged forward and the battle began.

Nel, was correct in assuming that the two Black Brigade soldier would be pointless. They were easily dispatched and soon it was Albel against the three of them. Three-on-one should have been good odds but Albel fought like a demon possessed and for every small wound it received it returned the favor two fold. Nel was terrified that its katana would find a happy home between her breasts and, at the same time, taking immense pleasure from the sickening joy of battle. At one point Albel's claw tore through the side of her waist and four slices in both cloth and flesh. Her adrenaline was pumping to strong though for her to feel more then the slights annoyance. Albel also managed to severely injure both Fayt and Cliff to the point that they could not keep fighting. By that time though Albel had taken many wounds. Its thigh had a strong cut through it, its chest was bleeding and its bruises outnumbered the rocks that made the ground they fought on. Still, though it managed to keep her back for almost a full half hour before she was able to sneak a cut onto its sword arm. The blade left its hand and it fell to the ground.

It panted for a few second's and then began to speak in a haggard voice, "Go on kill me. Do what you should have done years ago and kill me. Maggots don't deserve life and I am king of the maggots." Nel raised her knife up to drive it into the back of its hunched neck. But she could not do it. Queen Romeria was whispering in her mind that he was an enemy and must be killed and conscience was agreeing with her. The rest of her though could not accept that this was the right, that this was just. She could not bring her self to kill something so pathetic.

The creature beneath her was not human and had not been for years. It was something less, a creature that had let itself be bent by pain, be broken by torment, and reshaped into a beast. Killing it would be a mercy.

She sheathed he daggers and took a step away. It howled at her back as she got Cliff and Fayt ready to go. Cliff made a snide comment to it about whether it wanted to be beaten up again and it responded, "Gladly. I wish nothing more then to be killed. No one shall give their mercy to me, I shall not accept it." Fayt as well decided to mock the creature's fake pride and quoted something that the Wicked One had said sometime ago about trouncing weaklings. It didn't seemed bother by the insult and only Nel knew why. It had no arrogance to harm, it already believed it was a failure and merely pretended to be something great and prideful.

She looked back at him and was disgusted by what she saw. Its face was twisted by the rage that boiled through it, rage against being once again spared from a death it felt that it deserved. It was the most disturbing thing she ever saw and all she could feel was pity. She knew that it would not desire the pity but she felt it all the same. She began to wonder what could have possibly happened to this beast that it would sink to such a low level of existence. She herself had felt the pain of loss, of losing a father to war but she had never even considered throwing her humanity away in order to stoke the fires of her own despair. Albel just could not deal with whatever problems it had, it was weak. Albel was just one of its maggots that could not survive without the desire to kill her. It had suffered no worse then she had! It had leaned upon its nation to support it just as much as she had leaned on hers. If anyone should be a broken shell of a human it should be her but she had will, something Albel did not. It faked itself, it was a construct of the baser parts of the human subconscious. The pity she felt for it evaporated. She liked watching it wreath in the torment it created by not being able to deal with it. Staring back into the creature's eyes she spoke to the beast, "You are weak".

The beast let out a despairing howl that fell on deaf ears.

* * *

_No not from her anyone but her anyone anyone anyone I can take the taunts the slander the pathetic maggots pretending their some mighty gods but no no no I can't take her saying that not some mercy loving wench who saves the lives a suicidal maniacs and enemies! She gave mercy therefore she is weak how could I let my self Im a maggot a maggot. What am I whining about? I already knew that! Couldn't it have been that blond oaf that knocked me out or the blue haired pansy but not her no no no no no no no not her please please not her I can't take her she she she she. I'm the one who is supposed to get revenge on her not be ravaged by her! But I'm weak weak but she shouldn't say that. How dare such a maggot call me weak, someone with out the wisdom to kill me? Does she deem that I am not a threat? Is that it? It must be but I'll kill her kill her then she'll have to see! See what? What am I trying to prove? _Albel clutched his head with his living hand as he kneeled on the ground. _Why does it matter if I prove that she shouldn't have saved me? Why?... I don't want to be a maggot anymore I don't want to! Of course! Why didn't I see this before? If I can can…prove to her that I'm not…no what should I do? Do I kill her and elimating a weakling from the word? Or do I prove my might make her realize that I am more powerful and there by…moot her saving my life? No what is this concept its on the tip of my mind dammit why could I not have been born a philosopher! If she realizes my strength then at the vary least she has to take back that weak statement then what? Does that make her wish she had let me die and what does that do? Does she forgive me and I gain some insipid redemption? No! But what if she not weak what if that? I don't know I don't know…I need to know some things about her first…individual strength, determination, intellect and such facets of strength, then I shall surpass her so completely that…that's it! I understand now! If I become stronger then the person who saved my life I will have proven my right to continue to live, I will be able to prove that while I have been a maggot, I'm not anymore then finally finally…_He began to laugh, the laugh tinged with sarcasm and malevolence reverberated a thousand times again and again through the dry dusty canyon. It almost began to sound like the world had gone insane and was laughing with him. But he knew that wasn't right. The world hadn't gone insane. The world had always been insane. 

A loud boom could be heard behind him. The ground shook under the force of the impact and gust of wind tore at his back. He sighed, _I thought I would have more time to recover and get the hell out of here before he arrived._ "If it isn't the great and might Albel Nox." The sniveling Schwiemer said as he approached, "How has he been laid low by a few… "maggots"?"

Albel was not in the mood for this crap, "Cut it Schwiemer, just arrest me for treason and lets get this over with, I'm sure Vox doesn't want to be kept waiting."

Schwiemer, being both on to underestimate Albel and very cocky about taking Albel by surprise, was taken aback by this but recovered and began to read a scroll that he had brought with him, " Albel Nox you are hereby arrested for treason. You have twice let a party of threats to Airyglyph escape you with out proper effort being put into preventing their escape. You have disobeyed orders to remain stationed at Kirlsa until your unit has recuperated its losses. You have…" The list went on and on, naming his various war crimes and atrocities, most of which had actually been commited by Vox.

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Please review, even if its a flame, please please please etc etc... another paragraph where i have fun deastroy all the rules I learn about paragraph organization in school. TAKE THAT MRS. TURNER! 


	8. The Battles of Souls

**The Battles of the Souls**

**By Breaeden Swordwind**

Authors note: First I'd like to say how sorry I am for the delays with this chapter and would also like to apologize because they may continue as I have a lot of work crunching down on me as I prepare for several in-school and out-of-school test and projects. Hopefully it will clear up in the next few weeks and I can devote more time to writing…just don't count on it.

Second, I'd like to once again thank you all for the hits and reviews, with more then 700 hits and 15 reviews this is going very well. To those who consistently review (Blue Trillium and Silver Thorns) keep it up and thanks a ton. To those who don't, please do I appreciate you comments and concerns.

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Nel looked from atop the gate of Arias upon the field that would soon be no more then a hurricane of chaos and violence. Now it was peaceful. A few clouds of dust floated on the wind away from her and to the lines of the Airyglyph army where the soldiers were rising from their slumbers to prepare for battle. The rising sun echoed in its crimson hue the color of the blood which it would look upon when the day was done. The place was carpeted in brown dust and a few sporadic rocks and was flanked my stone formations and one or two cliffs as the mountainous regions around Kirlsa slowly turned into the fertile plains of Aquaria.

She had heard the rumors. Albel Nox would not be taking part in the coming battle. It left her confused. The creature had gone out of its way to stop them in the canyon, but now it could not be bothered to join in the battle it should be ordered to attend? It had even disobeyed its… that was why. It must have been arrested for disobeying orders and disappearing from duty, it needed to be made an example of by the Glyphian government. Nel couldn't completely doubt that Vox was not somehow involved in that. She was someone disappointed not to see that creature. It was out of a twisted desire to see something so pathetic and hideous die upon the fields… a perverted joy that should could not completely explain. Knowing that Albel's unholy skill with its katana and claw didn't make much of a difference.

The two engineers from Greeton had agreed to take part in the battle but she had a feeling that it wasn't going to matter a lot. It would all come down to the Thunder arrows to determine the result.

It still seemed odd that the fate of Airyglyph and Aquaria was about to be decided upon the fields of battle and Albel Nox would not be there. There would be something so symbolic of her and it meeting in the middle of the battle field and engaging in a one-on-one fight to the death that she was surprised that fate would not allow it to come to past… fate a thing for irony and symbolism. She wondered ideally if they were torturing the poor creature… but then she realized even if they were they could never inflict the pain he inflicted on himself.

Casting one last glance upon the arid foothills she noticed someone standing on a cliff above the battlefield. She looked closer and gradually she could discern the feature of a cloaked boy in its left hand was a massive greatsword that she had seen used by the members of the Black Brigade and in his right hand she saw a scythe. The cloak and scythe made recognition easy… Black Bird.

She didn't know what effect he would have on the battle but she needed to be on her guard…knowing him he could make all the difference. She ran towards her own lines to warn Fayt and Cliff.

* * *

Black Bird grinned down upon the pathetic legions lining up below him and his skin tingled with anticipation. He had been waiting days for this battle to come so that he could clash with hordes of pathetic mortals and maybe, he prayed, fight someone who would make things interesting.

But something was off in the air… It was subtle, as the less acute minds would be distracted by the birds flying peacefully over head and the sun beaming down in golden waves upon the brilliantly polished armor of both armies. It was a foreboding that went beyond the mere stigma of peonic battles…something that went beyond the scope of a single planet and for some reason it filled him with hope. Power was on its way to this backwater place and maybe he would find death in its grip…dubious.

Both armies began to charge toward each other and the boy known as Black Bird grinned… his brother would not be taking part in this battle which was unfortunate but he wouldn't let that spoil his good time. He leapt down from the cliff and took up a space in the center of the battle field between the two armies. When both sides began to close on him like a vice he swung his sword and scythe around him cleaving through both sides…officially making him the enemy of both. This would be a fun day indeed.

* * *

The whip struck him again. He long ago lost count of the times the bastard had brought the whip down on him something in the area of fifty seemed right… well today at least. His wrist were rough from scrapping against the metal shackles of the cell and he was exhausted. Sleep did not come easily when one was kept standing at all times. But worse then all this were the wounds to his pride, which struck him as odd since he hated himself. At one time they clasped a metal collar around his neck and walked him around like a dog until he managed to break the chain… the collar was still around his neck.

Albel couldn't take this, every time he was struck he saw Nel swinging that whip. Every time he heard a laugh it was innocently wicked and feminine. He was completely absorb by the maggot. She had done so much damage and now that he was ready to get back his humanity these fools were keeping him from it. They were like an extension of Nel. She wanted him to stay sub-human so that she could mock him. Of course, that's why she had saved him! It was all one big conspiracy… He was really getting delusional he sighed. The whip struck him again… "Maggot, don't get distracted!" the bastard seemed to be wearing a smirk under the black mask that covered his face.

Albel could almost see Nel holding that whip and he was infuriated, he wouldn't be demonized anymore, he was weak now but he would become stronger. Nel seemed to smirk at him from behind her scarf, and he lunged at her the chains pulling tight around his wrists and ankles, cutting into the skin and causing blood to flow from the wounds. "You can't hold me down forever, wench! I will surpass you! I will regain my humanity and there will be nothing you can do about it!"

The whip crashed against the side of his face and he was once more looking at a bulky male in black leather clothes. "This one's getting all optimistic on us… You know what that means?" the masked man spoke wickedly as grabbed a strange yet threatening device… _I will regain my humanity by losing all of it.

* * *

_

The battle had been joined and Nel was moving through the tumult with some aid from Cliff and Fayt. Men were falling and dying beside her, and not all by her hand. Some were allies, others foes, but all left their blood upon the orange clay and made it maroon and soft. Screams emanated from all sides, some carrying the will to one, some carrying the pain of death. All, added and resounded upon one another creating one endless scream which tore at Nel's ears as she moved through the ruby chaos.

None of the enemy could stand against the cadre of her and the two engineers. They pushed forward against the tide of men and began to make their way towards the Airyglyph command forces which was their objective. Her blades were red now, completely covered with blood that coagulated into droplets that hung, clingingly, to the steel to afraid to let go. She didn't noticed though, her head wasn't really into this battle, she was still pondering what had happened with the creature known as Albel, she could only be disgusted by the beast and in some small way felt unsure, when she did not know where it was, like one is afraid of a monster when one cannot see it but feels absolutely sure that it must be there. The most absurd part was that she knew for a fact that it was not their but she _felt_ that it should be their, after all what is a battle without your disgusting subhuman rival to defeat in an affirmation of your cause? What is the purpose of fighting if you defeat the physical army of your enemy but not their ideology? Albel represented that ideology of half hidden weakness covered by a front of physical strength. He seemed to have power but he had not the will to develop it to its full potential or was crippled by emotional weakness. There was something so much more satisfying about scoring not only a technical but also a moral victory. It made the fruits of victory all the more ripe and ready for picking. Without Albel she didn't have that moral high ground. Now she was just a servant, acting by order of her mistress, and casting aside all sense of self in order to see the goals of the mistress done.

Maybe it was all that thinking that made her miss the whirlwind going on in the center of the battle field until Fayt mentioned it.

"Look at that!" Fayt said, and looking to where he was point she saw it. Between the two armies a single cloaked figure was attacking both sides. Despite the press of solider trying to crush him in a pincer he held both sides at reach of his scythe and great sword. A single slash would cut through men and send the skidding across the ground like tossed stones and he seemed able to parry all of the feeble attacks mustered against him. Sometimes he would slip amidst the soldiers on one side, laughing mockingly as they struggled to pin him down as he floated on the tumult. After a bit of that he would spin holding out his weapons to clear a new opening for himself. The fighting style tickled something in her memory. She had never seen it but she had heard rumors from Airyglyph when she was a child of a rising star in the Black Brigade who wielded such weapons. But, no most of that was forgotten and she could not recall the name or even the certainty of the memory. But the boy continued to cut through the soldiers that encircled him. So Black Bird was being as destructive as she had originally supposed…

"We need to stop him! Look at all the people he is killing for no reason!" yelled Fayt, showing off his impossibly naïve nature.

"No…" Nel shot off quickly even though the decision was painful, she knew that it would be best if they let those people die. "We have to focus on are objective. He is a clear and present threat to both sides, which means he is a threat to neither. He does not seemed to be making any moves toward either camp which means he will not have a positive or negative effect on the battle." At least she hoped he would stay put… she didn't like the idea of a loose cannon flailing around but it was her best bet.

"But what about all the people that are dying!" Fayt yelled but Cliff stepped in…

"They are gonna die anyway fighting each other… who kills them is not the point. If that beast wasn't there they'd only be killing each other directly."

Fayt subsided a little at this but not much.

Taking a quick look across the battle field she could see a large dragon hovering in the back of the enemy army with a man perched atop it that was directing the soldiers. It was Duke Vox. There was a large space around him, empty of soldiers, which he had sent into the other empty area around Black Bird. Seemed like Vox wasn't going to ignore the challenge of a single boy against two armies and was quite taken with eliminating him... but he was being stupid… Nel had begun to notice that the very act of sending men to kill Black Bird only led to his continued survival. The soldiers sent against him cumbersomely attempted to get past him to their real enemy or got in each others way trying to attack him. It was the chaos that Black Bird was using to survive just as much as his sword and Vox was only increasing it.

At any rate, Vox was alone and exposed. This was the opportunity they need to attack him. Nel gave the order to Fayt and Cliff and the three of them charged against him.

As they neared him she noticed that Black Bird was moving through the Airyglyph army towards Vox as well, leaving corpses in his wake. Was he intercepting them for fear they would end the battle too soon? Or did he simply want to fight a more worthy opponent, be that Vox or them? Either way, she didn't trust his reasons for being here. He may have been an ally for a time but he had made it perfectly clear their goals were not necessarily parallel.

Vox made a show of mocking them and for the most part Nel ignored it, Black Bird had caught up and was standing beside her between her and Fayt. His face didn't seem at all amused but their was a certain lightheartedness with which he carried himself that communicated the joy he had taken from killing all those soldiers. While, Vox was posturing he said to the group, "Sirs and Ma'am I doubt you have the strength to even begin to compete with this fool. I will lend you my scythe and sword." There it was again, that arrogant voice saying words of humility. It was obnoxious as hell. Speaking of obnoxious creature, she wondered if it was just I coincidence that one could not spell obnoxious with out "Nox".

It was probably not by chance that Black Bird did not _offer_ his services, he _told _them he would be fighting for them, though she admitted they could use the help. Vox had just finished his speech on…whatever, now it was time to cut to the chase.

The fight seemed to go on and on. By now Cliff was unconscious, Fayt was thrashed, and she had more then a couple wounds herself. Black Bird seemed to be untouched. She could have sword that his arm had gotten stabbed by Vox's lance but their was no wound to show for it. Black Bird was fighting well and had not only grounded Vox's dragon by hacking into the muscle attached to its wing, but he had also kept at bay soldiers trying to enter the melee. Suddenly, attention was diverted.

A beam of light descended from the sky upon Vox and when her eyes could once more see Nel saw no remaining trace of the dragon or its rider. Looking to where the blast had come from she saw floating in the sky a…thing. It was glimmering in the sun, red and brilliant, like a blood ruby, and its shape was an impossible series of curves and cuts that seemed to flow with the air. It seemed suspended by no force that she recognized and it oozed a foreboding malice that was often brought by the harbingers of change.

Certain parts of the device started to glow and more light beams rained down upon the armies, sending both sides into full rout. A man slaughtering both sides was one thing but a metal god with arrows of light was another entirely.

Fayt was shouting at it and running toward it, seeming to recognize the Leviathan though she knew not how. Something from Greeton, perhaps? It was strange but a runology symbol began to appear above his for head and from nowhere a blast of energy came from him. It was pure and holy, white as marble and when it had faded a mist of feathers floated down gently to the unmoving ground. When it had faded the ruby dragon was gone from the sky and not a trace remained.

And Nel collapsed to her knees in shock.

* * *

_Well that was interesting. It was strong but… not strong enough. Oh well, if a mere mortal boy like that could create such power then imagine what else must be out there!_ The boy known as Black Bird smiled at the prospect and watched as one of the feather floated down to land on his shoulder. Apparently, there were more amusing fights out there in the spectrum of existence and if he played his cards right he might be able to find more of them.

When that boy had released his power it had tweaked something inside Black Bird… it was an amusing feeling but one that seemed to have no point. He closed his eyes and opened them… this time looking at the world with eyes of blue and lapping tongues of fire. And he was even more hopeful. The data was chaotic where the beam of energy had passed and laws of physics were still mending. There were even holes in the data that were being refilled. It would be a humbling experience for anyone but Black Bird. It did not strike him as more the odd. Not a miracle, but something that did not normally happen but was not unprecedented.

Blinking and returning his sight to normal he became pensive. As he walked to Urlssa a plan began to form in his mind. One which anticipated the logical course of action that the mortals would take.


	9. In the Dampening Dark

**In the Dampening Dark**

**By Breaeden Swordwind **

Well... I'm back and as I promised there was a massive delay. However, exams are only a few weeks away and hopefully I'll be able to spare more time after that but I can't be certain. As usual send me any comments and questions you may have.

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Even as she descended from the cold air of the ground floor to the frozen air of the dungeon she could not believe it. She refused to believe it. She had never really considered herself always on the side of truth, justice, and all that bull, but she had always liked to think that at the end of the day she had done more good than harm, that she was ultimately doing the right thing. However, this latest decision by her higher ups had thrown that entire concept into question. How could she be at least somewhat good when she was bearing along with her a beast of such untold evil?

The dungeon opened wide its cold stone arms in greeting. A desperately hopeful insanity seemed to pervade the very stone and exuded from it slowly and constantly like the stench from a rotting corpse. But Nel could not notice any of this so focused was she on being in disbelief at what she was moving towards.

This was not what she was expecting to have happened when they had gone to Mosel. She was expecting an almost pointless meeting that would say things that were obvious and apparent but first needed to be addressed with a large degree of formality. "We must fight these new attackers" "We need a dragon to reach them and only Aquaria's cannons could damage them!" and so on until they had gradually pieced together the blatant need for an alliance. It was all just supposed to be a bunch of pomp and circumstance.

Of course, Fayt had told Nel it was her responsibility to fill the new girl, Maria, in on what exactly the two nation's ruler's command had meant. What sort of creature it would entail them carrying. She supposed she owed Fayt and them enough for having helped to save the Sacred Orb but still she had been forced to talk about certain issues and certain things she did not like to talk about. The very act of reciting them had made her agitated and had put her in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Cliff made the poor decision to blame her problems on something he called "PMS" and once she was told what that stood for she had personally punched him in the face.

She still, however, did not see the value of allowing into the ground something so blindly destructive! Something so self-destructive it might well destroy them in an attempt to destroy itself. It would, at best, be a burden to the mission, completely unreliable no matter how much it knew of the Lava Caves.

"What is the captain of the Black Brigade doing down here in the dungeon?" Fayt asked.

"You shall see." Responded Waltar, their guide. He was an old man definitely within the twilight of his life whose experiences and cunning still made him a dangerous opponent if not in the combat sense. He was more of a strategist who could make 100 men into a force capable of crushing whole armies with tactical maneuvers. He had a warriors training and a history of valorous deeds but those were now behind him to be replaced with deeds of sagacity.

Nel had to agree with Fayt's trepidation on this one. She herself was curious as to why they would have to meet Albel in the dungeon… maybe it just got kicks out of beating the life out of prisoners. That didn't seem to out of character for it, in fact it seemed to be the most plausible explanation. That was also probably why it wasn't at the battle. It probably pleasured itself to sounds of people screaming.

They arrived at a door. It was a thick mahogany slab that was padded around it to muffle the screams of those kept with in. This was the door to the room where they tortured captured enemies and Nel knew of its reputation well, she had known subordinates that fell into its clutches… They were never the same again.

There was a legend about this room, both in Airyglyph and Aquaria, that this room was tied directly to the realm of demons and that sometimes the inquisitor would call upon one to aid in the breaking of the latest victim. That Romero was a frequenter of this room and would use it to amuse himself and that such amusement was the only reason demons so rarely attacked the world of humans.

But that was legend, right?

However, even the door lived up to the legend. A trail of blood led away from it that could either be, depending on how on thought at the time, a serpentine tongue or drool. Around the door was a lining of viciously white stones. For some reason these pure unmarked white stones seemed far more menacing for their pristine gleam then all the blood stain floors and dank scents. Maybe it was because they were as teeth. Above the door were two torches that cast their binary light into the gloomed and stare out at the approaching victims hungrily from their sockets. The fires lapped lustily as the person drew near and watched him with expectation until he was through in when, by legend, they would blink out, savoring the taste of the new mortal flesh, and then burn once more.

Even those members of the group that had not known of this legend were trembled visibly, even Cliff teeth could be heard chattering in his empty skull. Everyone was now suspicious as to why Albel Nox would have been thrown into such a prison and Nel herself was beginning to doubt that it was of his own choice.

Waltar smirked mirthlessly and almost tragically as he solemnly intoned, "we are here". He pulled from a pocket an onyx key which was sculpted with barbs that gave it a menacing aura befitting the door it was to open. He slammed the key into the luck with the necessary force to unlock it and as he twisted it the mechanisms screamed mournfully and sadly. They didn't want to loose their meal.

The inside was black, utterly dark and Waltar walked in first, followed almost immediately by Nel and then the rest. Waltar sighed, "The torch here must have gone out again. This room doesn't seem to like having lit torches in here… I'll be right back, I must retrieve a new one."

Nel sighed but was still definitely on her toes. She could hear the blood in her ears more then the slight grumbles of her comrades. She decided to back up against a wall and lean against it while she waited. Leaning back she felt something soft. She froze. It moaned slightly, its voice a cold dead rasp not unlike the chains that now sounded in unison with its rousing "ugh…what the hell?" Nel jumped back and drew her knife point the tip toward the… the thing.

Waltar entered with a torch from down the hall and Nel was standing in the center of the room. Everyone looked at her then at the person that was chained to the wall. It was the creature known as Albel Nox.

Albel blinked a few times, his eyes were taking time to adjust to the light after having been left in darkness for so long. Nel and everyone else just stared at it. Much of its body was scarred and a few wounds were still bleeding. It was obvious that it had been one of the people who Romero was summoned against. It was emaciated and starved but the muscle was still there. Physically, she had never seen a creature in so low a state. Every part of it seemed to be broken and its head was slumped forward, causing the strands of his two-tone hair to cover its face. Its claw had been left on his arm but was now beginning to rust over after being in the dank dungeon as long as it had been with out being clean. Seeing the rust covering the formally arrogantly gleaming surface of the claw seemed like such a tragedy. Something had never before been laid so low as to have gone from the symbol of death on a thousand battle fields to be rusting in the basement of a snow-locked castle.

Then she noticed the wall. Not only was it covered with blood that seemed to be Albel's but where the chain were attached to the wall cracks were forming from having been pulled on. Albel must have been pulling the entire time in order to form such fissures, especially the one attached to his living wrist which seemed about to snap from the wall. Sure, enough its living wrist was nothing but blood, the skin long stripped away from the pulling against the chian.

Albel's head rose groggily and he smirked… "more hallucinations? Whatever, I can't be bothered with real maggots why should I be bothered by fake ones?" But gradually the smirked faded, "no you are real! Woman!" it shouted and lunged its living hand out to grab her. The chain flew from the wall, carrying with it a small chunk of stone, giving Albel extra reach and for a moment she could imagine that it could feel her breath. She looked it in the eye and were its eyes not that distinctive shade of blood she would not have thought him the same person. They still seemed weak but now seemed to have a faint glimmer in their ruby depths, a faint light that shone all the brighter because there was nothing around it but darkness. Eventually Albel's knees broke and it fell only to be stopped part of the way above the ground by the chain attached to its claw arm.

Albel was breathing heavily and painfully, hanging limply from a chain like some rag doll that had fallen into the hands of boys with that childish malevolence that was uniquely theirs. But still it managed to smirk arrogantly, "What are you maggots doing here? Waltar! Do you not know they are the Enemy?"

"Things have changed, but suffice it to say Airyglyph and Aquaria are currently observing a truce." Waltar spoke, pouring all his dignity and experience power into his words so that Albel would be at least some what placated.

"Ha! With Vox alive that is not a possibility. Unless… Vox is dead?" As Albel's lips moved his eyes began to glow with something between intense hope and virulent disappointment.

"Indeed, boy, the warmonger is dead, it was these people who fought in battle against him on the plains of battle but the killing blow had been struck by another…" Waltar kept his statements suitably ambiguous, probably more out of habit then because there was any real need to do so.

"And I'm to suppose from that statement that you won't tell me who exactly did kill him until you get something out of me? You're getting too easy to predict old man." Albel's lip curled up in a vile smirk.

Waltar sighed put off that his purpose had been smoked out so soon into the conversation with Albel but continued on regardless, "Be that as it may, The king has asked you to guide these warriors to the Urlssa Lava Caves so that they may try to enlist the aid of the Marquis against the new enemy which has revealed itself too us. Of course, you freedom will be granted to you upon the completion of this task."

The clawed bastard lips opened even more into a smile that showed too many teeth, a wolf's smile. "I'm not sure I want to leave, fool… this place has taught me many things." As it spoke on of the scabs near its mouth opened and it began to bleed once more, "but it will be nice to be getting stronger once more… been so long since last I fought. But you must answer me this, who is this new foe and how powerful are they?"

"We are not certain who exactly the enemy is, but this young man," Waltar made a motion of his hand toward Fayt, "calls them Vendini and I assure you they are very powerful."

"Hm… so be it. I shall lend my blade to you worms, for now. But I'm not doing this because I want to help or because I was told, I merely wish to see the just how strong this enemy is"

"As you will." Waltar looked toward the others that had been standing in rigid attention as the exchange had been going on, Albel's very nature and demeanor putting them ill at ease. "He is strong, you will not have to worry about him burdening you, however I will admit that his… social skills are lacking in their polish. But within Airyglyph I can assure you there is no man stronger." Seeing a faint nod from Fayt and even an grim acknowledgement from Nel, he turned back to, "And Albel, though it has been many years and no doubt little remains, if you see your brother's corpse I would like you to bring it back. No soldier deserves to have his body left upon the field of battle."

Albel nodded grimly.

Without ceremony, Albel began to leave the room not even bothering to notice the others. Nel had backed up, over the course of the conversation, to the door and was now leaning beside it. Just as Albel began to pass she whispered, "I don't like this any more then you do Albel."

Ever so gently Albel placed its claw on her stomach, "Maggot, I will be strong, no matter how much you may believe otherwise. You will see. Tch…" After he had spoken he began to walk once more and dragged his claw along her stomach leaving cuts in her armor that exposed strips of her side and stomach to the frigid air of death. However, the cuts did not make their way to her skin in even the slightest way.

Albel forcefully opened the door to the hallway and walked out. The door groaned sadly as its meal was snatched from its bowels. Albel's leg had a slight limp as he walked down the hallway but it managed to walk with a sense of pride and dignity that Nel had not previously thought it capable of. It walked with an obvious weight but also with a willingness to bear that weight which would make the gods ashamed of themselves.


	10. Ties to Bind

Ties to Bind

By Breaeden Swordwind

A/N: Nothing particularly interesting to say about this one… just the normal reminder to review when you are done.

Finally they were able to pass by the fallen rubble that had blocked their way to the den of Crosell. It had been a pain to walk all the way to the flame drenched caves only to have to return to Airyglyph castle at the bidding of some god damn rabbit and retrieve the necessary material for a ring that would clear the stones away from the door. It had infuriated Albel with its pointlessness. He wanted to tear the bones out of that furball and use them to make the ring! Heh, even if it didn't work at least he would get some measure of pleasure out of the exercise.

It had been a painfully annoying journey to get here in the first place. And not just because of the long hours of walking with only an intermittent battle to prevent him from succumbing to the ravages of boredom. That infernal wench was being a pest as well. She had gotten still stronger since the battle in the canyon and unfortunately his weeks in the dungeon had taken some of the edge off his fighting ability. He was now in the unenviable position of playing catch up. It was sickening to him. She outpaced him but he had quickly closed the gap and the two of them were now dead even in ability, though both claimed they were the superior one. Now whenever battle was joined the two of them fought with an unquenchable fury, an unspoken rivalry burning between the two as Albel sought to be lifted above her and to prove his ascendance from the realm of maggots and Nel sought to keep him weak and pathetic. Albel cast another venomous glare at her back. He despised the loathsome woman, who seemed to validate herself and her cause by keeping him weak and evil. Still he fought with all his hatred. He found that imagining his enemies were Nel infused him with a rage and bloodlust that horrified both the enemy and the other members of the party. Ironically, thought when she had been attack by an enemy from behind it was he who had dashed in to take the blow and kill the enemy. Afterwards, the wench, in her never ending quest to prevent him from gaining honor, had asked to heal him so that he would not have the glory of having saved her without repayment. It would damage his rekindling pride to have been healed by her. Not only that it would have given her another excuse for demonizing him as a pathetic dependent.

Not only that but the foolish woman had once again showed her weakness to him when she spoke of her detest for the killing of the dragons in order to harvest her body parts. He had pointed out that what she did was no different. Murder is murder whether it is for a cause or for pleasure, to try and rationalize it only did a disservice to the one you killed. It turned them from a human to an obstruction. From a warrior to an idiot too blinded by "untruths" to see your "holy righteousness". Such thinking was far more disgusting then the thousands of massacres that had occurred during history. When he had said this to her she had shouted a quick, "Your just like-!" before snapping her mouth shut. His curiosity was almost piqued at the thought there was someone out there with a similar philosophy but in the end he had not asked about it.

He didn't know whether to be glad or annoyed that Urlssa had remained almost completely unchanged since…his last visit. It was comforting in a way, being able to tread down the same paths that he had before his father's death, this time with the potential and power to change the outcome but still it caused that day to repeat itself over and over in his mind. The confident smile his father had beamed down on him as they stepped into the chamber, the sickening smell of melted flesh and skin, the stench, the- no! He must push such thoughts out of his mind. But still they came tempting him with the beauty of the pain they inflicted on his mind. It was odd how comforting it was to torture himself with these memories. Man could be a masochistic beast it seemed. Or maybe it was just him.

The stone cones were topped with billowing genies of smoke and ash that floated inside the caverns belly. It was like walking though the innards of some great dragon that had laid itself down to sleep and had been resting for so long it had been consumed by the earth, which had yet to staunch the burning in the creatures heart. The pools of lava bubbled sickeningly like digestive juices and menaced what little ground was left for the humans to tread on. The air itself seemed to be glowing with a faint orange haze that made it difficult to see but still Albel had led the way stride familiarly down the path he had trod a thousand time in memory. It had been to his great frustration to find stones blocking the way to Crosell's inner sanctum but fortunately they had been able to find an alchemist capable of making a ring that would remove the stones. Only problem was it was necessary for them to walk all the way back to Airyglyph in order to retrieve the necessary ingredients. So they wasted still more days on that exercise.

Now they walked into the voluminous grotto where Albel had taken his Ascension of Flame ceremony many years ago. The place still seemed to reek of his father's flesh. Ashes littered the ground and in his mind they were all from his father, all little reminders of his weakness. There was a wide fissure in the ceiling that normally allowed dragons to fly in and out of the cavern but for now it let in a strong breeze that kicked the ashes up. Albel breathed in and inhaled the ash and it was sickening. He could almost taste the loathing all those who had died had for him. Why should he, just another failure of the Ascension of Flame ceremony, be allowed to live when they were only allowed to stay on earth in the form of mournful ash? The noonday light flowed easily into the cave and allowed them too see quite clearly the massive dragon lying lazily in front of them. The thing was colossal, it made the castle back in Airyglyph seemed a mere shack and its wings seemed easily capable of bloating out the sky when he flew overhead. His skin was an earthy orange, not unlike the sun baked stones of the Kirlsa mountains, and the large scales were great plates of organic steel that overlapped one another in precise geometric fashion. His main limbs were to large hind legs, which were currently folded neatly beneath his girth, as well as two smaller forelimbs. Its muzzle held a kit of bone-made broadswords that gleamed menacingly as thin tendrils of smoke wound there way from his mouth and nostrils.

Suddenly, one massive eye opened to reveal a deep burgundy orb that scanned slothfully the mortals arrayed in front of him. Albel looked down at the ground and let his hair hide his face hoping he would not be recognized but his hopes were soon dashed. The dragon voiced bellowed though he didn't seem to intend it to come off quite as loud as it did, "The ceremony cannot be retaken." Crosell then closed his eye and seemed to go back to sleep.

"That's not why we're hear, worm!" Albel barked back hoping to avoid the attention to his past by focusing on their present situation. He gestured viciously with his living hand as he spoke.

The eye once more opened, this time it seemed to have a curious glimmer to it but still seemed to be mostly bored with the humans, "Oh? Then why are you here?"

This time Fayt stepped forward, "Crosell, at this moment the people of this planet and the planet itself is being attacked by invaders from another world. The nations have accorded a peace and are gathering there remaining soldiers and weapons. We have a cannon that can be used to fight against the enemy's massive hovering vessals, however, they have not the range to hit them. That is why we need you to bear them on you back so we can get close enough to fire."

This time both of Crosell's eyes opened angrily and his head rose from the ground a few feet to glare at them. The smoke coming from his mouth and nose darkened ominously, "What insult is this? That I the lord of dragons should have to bear the creations of man upon my back like a common mule! I refuse!"

Fayt pleaded with the beast, "Is there anyway we could convince you to do this? It is for the sake of this entire world, a world which you live on as well!"

"NO! I refuse! I will not consider it!"

"You will do it Lord Crosell." A voice cut in from nowhere.

"This is a disgrace! I have already fallen in pride when I lost before but I shall never recover from this humiliation!" Crosell snarled back at the voice while looked around for where the voice was coming from. Albel recognized the voice and his forehead furrowed angrily. _How can he be here?_

"Don't worry about it, Marquis. I shall free you from being bound to me and you will no longer be subjected to the humiliation of being subject to the whims of a human. That seems like a more than equitable trade." The voice said evenly.

The dragon seemed to ponder the deal for a moment before giving a reluctant nod. "I don't really have a choice. Damn me for even accepting that challenge!"

Finally, Maria shouted out, "Who the hell is there?" saying what everybody but Albel was thinking.

"I'm sorry." The voice said with a slight sneer in his voice, "I suppose I should come out into the light." With that the person, the boy, stepped forward.

Nel, Fayt, and Cliff shouted a name in unison while Albel snarled a different one, all receiving a smirk from the young man. His platinum hair hung in tufts in front of mud colored eyes, which looked at them with a vicious mirth. His face sliced over with scars beyond counting.

"Black Bird!"

"Kasch!"

"Hello, to you too"

Albel recovered from shock first, "How are you even alive still? It's been years since you went to face Crosell and never returned! Everyone thought you were dead!"

Kasch shrugged, "I wish Crosell had killed me. But he didn't and after defeating the most powerful being I knew of I decided I couldn't be bothered to waste my time with Airyglyph. I have just been floating between the two armies during this war. A mercenary for Airyglyph one week, holding the ranks for Aquaria then next, whatever gives me a decent battle and enough food to survive." Kasch spoke with a condescending smirk both plastered roughly on his face and also hanging on his words. Albel sneered at the boy who was "humoring" him with some half-assed explanation for his actions.

"Tch, whatever worm. But what's the catch? You can't just be helping us out of the kindness of your little black heart." Albel spat

Kasch made a slight brushing motion on his cloak as though some of Albel's spittle had actually gotten on it, "I have my reasons. At the moment they don't conflict with your, esteemed brother. For now, you don't really have the luxury of complaining as I am in possession of the one you need to win your little war."

Albel grunted in defeat before Fayt spoke, "Alright then, you will let us use Crosell?"

"HE WILL 'LET' YOU USE NO ONE! I AM NO ONE'S POSSESSION!" The Marquis bellowed angrily. The entire group, save Albel and Kasch, started coughing as smoke fumes blew through the cavern.

"They meant no offense, Lord Crosell" the white haired Nox brother consoled sarcastically, not bothering to turn around.

Once the fumes had risen and the air was once more breathable Fayt asked forgiveness and politely asked Crosell to bear the weapons of Aquaria on its back. The dragon agreed though not with out an annoyed town infused in his voice. Afterwards, it was decided that the easiest way back to Aquaria would be to ride Crosell back. After initially fighting off this idea the Marquis agreed to let them ride him citing that the embarrassment of carrying there toys would make this trivial.

The flight back to Aquaria took a few hours and the conversation during the ride was limited to Maria, Cliff, and Fayt. Albel was glaring viciously at Kasch and occasionally sparing time to grumble an obscenity toward Nel, letting the wind carry away the words before they reached her ears. Kasch was leaning against one of Crosell's shoulder blades, his eyes closed in either deep thought or deep sleep. Nel seemed distracted more than the others about being so high above the ground and was the one furthest from the dragon's flanks, deeply fearful that she would fall off. The three off-worlders were also effect somewhat by the vertigo but were better able to ignore it and after a few minutes at cruising altitude were comfortable enough to chat.

Suddenly, Albel smirked viciously. The woman was distracted and completely off-balance. This was the perfect time.

"It must be disappointing to you, wench." Albel said to Nel coolly.

Nel, who was straddling Crosell's spine and digging her nails into the scales as best she could, glanced over at him. She seemed instantly suspicious and proceeded cautiously, "What do you mean?"

"Having to ally with us Glyphians. Its only natural after having fought us for so long that you would hate us. Now you have to fight along side us."

Nel clicked her tongue in annoyance, "I do what my queen asks me to. Its not my place to question her."

Albel pretended to muse thoughtfully, "Hmmm… sounds like the maggoty life you Aquarians would choose. Serving out of blind faith."

"The queen is a great person deserving of respect!" Nel barked back at him.

"Why? Cause she was born that way? Ha! You can't be so foolish! Don't you ever have doubts? Ever wonder if she was right? Live for yourself a little, fool."

Nel was starting to become more defensive, "Well… what about you! Don't you ever doubt your king?"

Albel smirked at her, "Don't you even know why I was in the stone coffin?"

Nel shook her head and growled in frustration, Albel could tell she couldn't think straight. Crosell hit a patch of turbulance and he began to vibrate causing the young woman to grip his hide even harder. Albel was unbothered by the roughness of the flight and lay back easily, letting his body rise and fall with the slight motions of Crosell's wings as he altered his course subconsciously to hit the thermals which provided him with the necessary lift to fly. Suddenly Crosell rocked slightly to the right and Nel reached out to grab onto something. Albel smirked malevolently and grasped her hand. She very slowly turned her head to look at him. As expected, she pulled her hand free but the action had served its purpose. For that brief moment she had been dependent on him. He was the one in the position of power and he held dominance over her. Her entire sense of confidence about her strength and his weakness would be thrown off of equilibrium.

"But why I wonder…" whispered Albel, "is it so important to you that you be right?"

Nel was still recovering but she argued as best she could, "I do what I believe!"

Albel sighed in acknowledgement, "Ah, and if a worm is not right then she herself is without value, I see"

Nel growled at him but then was forced to grab Crosell once more as he began a steep descent toward the Aquarian Castle. Albel smirked slightly at seeing the girl so flustered and out of balance. Idiots were indeed quite amusing at times. He then spared a glance toward Kasch who had a maliciously omniscient smirk angling across his face. Maybe Kasch hadn't been sleeping and had been paying attention. Whatever Albel didn't care.

She was furious. Her vision was stained red and she though a blood vessal had burst in her eye. How dare that weak suicidal rodent make her look like a fool. It couldn't even face life without trying to jump off a cliff and acted like it knew the meaning of life! She was thankful that no other members had seen her been batted around like a cat's play thing by a little emotional disturbed bastard. She was the one who had weathered life's test with her sanity intact how could she be so incapable of defending herself?

She opened the door to her room and stepped inside. She had gone through the motions of ordering the engineers to begin attaching the Thunder Arrow to Crosell. The members of the group were once more accomadated with rooms as well, even Kasch and Albel. She had been somewhat amazed to learn that Kasch was actual Albel's adopted brother. That was where she had heard of the scythe and sword fighting style that he was known for. So there were two of them. She would need a lot of herbs for the headache she would no doubt have by the end of the day.

She sighed threw herself down on the bed. Albel had made her feel so weak. She couldn't take much more of this. But what was worse was that not a few days ago Albel had save her life. She had foolishly let herself get separated during a fight and was surrounded by a group of two-legged wingless dragons each about her height. Albel had actually cut his way to her and had put his claw arm in the mouth of one attacking her from behind. He then killed all the creature, taking a few minor wounds. She felt sick afterwards. She owed her life to that wretched creature?


End file.
